The Impending Crisis of the South

claim, cry it a

ommon pulpits

dom, and enfr

ligion, we shall adduce testimony only from the five churches to which they, in their satanic piety, mostly belong-the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Roman Catholic-all of which, thank Heaven, are destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly abolitionized. With few exceptions, all the other Christian s

ERIAN T

one of the most learned Presbyterian prea

from what its friends and advocates would call 'abuses of the system.' It is a violation of the first sentiments expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and on which our fathers founded the vindication of their own conduct in an appeal to arms. It is at war with all that a man claims for himself and for his own children; and it is opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in all ages, for freedom. The claims of humanit

f his Christian character, or as performing the appropriate duty of a Christian, for owning one. No where in the New Testament is the institution referred to as a good one, or as a desirable one. It is commonly-indeed, it is almost universally-conceded that

as I believe there may be and ought to be-that shall be in accordance with the deep-seated principles of our nature in favor of freedom, and with our own aspirations for liberty, and with the sentiments of the world in its onward progress in regard to human rights, and

rated English Presbyter

the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a sh

sly adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyte

he spirit and principles of the Gospel of Christ, which enjoins that 'all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' * * * We rejoice that the church to which we belong commenced, as early as any other in this country, the good work of endeavoring to put

tucky, in an address to the Pre

ng our own pangs of conscience, and answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us belie

PAL TE

HORSLEY

which no consideration

BUTLE

of mankind, for whom Christ died, and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for w

PORTEUS

ders among the murderers of fathers and moth

Episcopalian-in a pamphlet entitled, "Thoughts on the Dut

e altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the subject, re

rch man," published in Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking

around it guards that the public teachers of morals may not pass. Sin is a violation of God's law-and God's law must be proclaimed and enforced at all hazards. This is the business of the messenger of God, and if anything stands in its way, it is his right, rather it is his solemn commission, to go forward-straightway to overpass the lines that

. Johnson, and the Rev. J. McNamara,-all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose magic eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early

T TEST

. Mr. Brisbane, once a slaveholdin

the first holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not to his successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But what is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give him a certain sum of money if he will steal a white child in Carolina and deliver him to me. He steals him; I pay him the money upon his delivering the child to me. Is it not my act as fully as his? Am I not also the thief? But does it alter the case whether I agree before hand or not, to pay him for the child? He steals him, and then sells him to me. He is found by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I purchased him and paid my money for him? Will it not be asked, Do you not know that a white person is not merchantable? And shall I not have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my service as a slave? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but

Francis Wayland, D.D., one of the most erudit

l benefit; and, of course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes in competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in the latter the right to pursue it. It suppos

, whenever these means of happiness can be rendered available to the service of his master. It supposes that the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual and moral actions of as many other human beings as by purchase he can bring within

f the slave, but for the sake of the happiness of the master. It subjects the amount of labor, and the kind of labor, and

tion only while he remains in the lowest state of mental imbecility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his intellectual development, just as far as may be necessary to secure ent

ve the right to determine how much knowledge of his duty a slave shall obtain, the manner in which he shall obtain it, and the manner in which he shall discharge that duty after he shall have obtained a knowledge of it. It thus subjects the duty of man to

e at variance with the ordinance of God, it might be easily drawn fr

in the master, pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish i

al wealth, may be easily seen fr

tricts the number of laborers, that is of producers, within

roving his condition; and substitutes, in the place of it, that motive which is the least operative a

the necessity of labor, nor the slave from the benefits which it confers. And here, while the one party wastes from ignorance of the laws

led regions, where the accumulated manure of centuries of vegetation has formed a soil, whose productiveness may, for a while, sustain a system at variance with the laws of nature. Many of our free and of our slaveholding States were peopled at about the same time. The slaveholding States had every advantage, both in soil and climate, over their neighbors. And yet the accumulation of c

They are, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and all things wh

n respects all things whatsoever. The precept, then, manifestly, extends to men, as men, or men in every con

ur own right over our own means of happiness, or as we desire any other individual to cherish for it. Now, were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The pr

ure precept upon this case, a few plain questions may

llow-men, without allowing them any voice in the equivalent which they shall receive; and which can only be sustained by

d subject him to slavery, for the same reasons, and on

avery? If the gospel be diametrically opposed to the principle of slavery, it must be opposed to the prac

but for all races, and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part of t

be asked when, I ask again, when shall a man begin to cease doing wrong? Is not the answer, immediately? If a man is injuring us, do we ever do

theological writer of the

nst society) is wicked and inconsistent with Christian character. To me it is evident, that whoever would purchase an innocent black man to ma

ists of Virginia, in 1789, the following resoluti

we recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God tha

IST TE

elebrated founder

actly on a level w

, he

that ever saw the sun; it consti

author of a voluminous commen

ll him into bondage; or those who buy such stolen men or women, no matter of what color, or what country; or the nations wh

the Methodist Discipline as am

ve months after notice given to him by the assistant, legally execute and record

e was in th

d into Society, or to the Lord's Supper, till he pre

with those who buy or sell slaves, or give th

expelled, unless they buy th

of this church wa

tice of slavery, and shall not cease to seek i

contained the followin

with which they are connected. The Annual Conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws have been passed for that purpose. These addresses shall urge, in the most respectful but pointed manner, the necessity of a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Proper committees shall be appointed by the Annual Conf

IC TES

XVI. immortalized himself by issuing the famous Bull ag

souls' health, and disgraceful to the Christian name. Among these may be especially quoted the bull of Paul III., which bears the date of the 29th of May, 1537 addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, and another still more comprehensive, by Urban VIII., dated the 22d of April, 1636, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in Portugal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy, exchange, or give them away, to separate them from their wives and children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring or transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive them of liberty, or retain them in slavery; also most severely castigating those who should presume or dare to afford council, aid, favor or assistance, under any pretext, or borrowed color, to those doing the aforesaid; or should preach or teach that it is lawful, or should otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, by any possible means, with the aforesaid. * * * Wherefore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace from the whole confines of Christianity, having summoned several of our venerable brothers, their Eminences the Cardinals,

shall be published according to custom, and copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of St. Peter and of the Apostolic Chancel, every and in like manner

nder the seal of the fisherman, on the 3d day of Dece

by Cardinal A

ed the language of P

igion, but nature herself cry ou

e Rayna

, the oppressors and the oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal of reason and justice thos

setts Anti-slavery Convention in 1

hurch in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the Catholic Church

us institution of human slavery. Thus they speak, and thus they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all; it is only the voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that

y allude-and, by the bye, he might hear from them with much profit to himself-we respectfully refer him to Henry Ward Beecher, George B. Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, E. H. Chapin, and H. W. Bellows, of the North, and to M. D. Conway, John G. Fee, James S. Davis, Daniel Wilson, and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these reverend gentlemen, ministers